


in the arizona rain

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon-Typical Violence, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21714028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: a version of how dean met lee, and what history they had together
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Lee Webb
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	1. Good Old Fashioned Ghost Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> lol, one day i'll learn how to do a good summary. not today, tho.  
> anyway, three chapters! the first is my idea of their first hunt together, two is somewhere in the middle of them knowing each other, and three will be them parting ways. thx for reading!

The life of a hunter was definitely a messy one. Disorganized and crazy, every job bringing a new town, new faces, and new stories to tell. Yet, something of a routine.

Now, most days, Dean didn't even remember what day of the week it was. He had a great memory for the important details; quiz him on what killed a wendigo or a werewolf and he could damn well tell you. But considering how many people they tended to meet on the road--between other hunters, local cops, suspects, victims, and the cashier at the gas station--names and faces could be a bit harder to place. He'd know if he knew them, sure, but exactly from when or where might be trickier.

But he remembered the first time he met Lee Webb. (And every time after, for that matter.)

It was a good old fashioned ghost hunt.

Dean couldn't have been older than nineteen, maybe twenty. He and John had gone down to this rundown old apartment building to check the place for EMF, or any other signs of a haunting.

It was when they'd made it to the second floor of the place they met Lee. They'd knocked on the door to the place next door to where the vic had been killed, and this guy had opened it. He was about Dean's age, maybe a couple years older. Tough to tell, because where his height made him look somewhat younger, the stubble around his jaw told a different story. He had, for reasons unknown, decided to open his front door without a damn shirt on.

John had told him they were electricians, and the guy had insisted he didn't call for one, but let them in anyway. Dean could never remember what bullshit lie John had told him to get them in.

It turned out it didn't matter.

Lee spent the next twenty minutes or so wasting their damn time; watching them check on the wiring so they couldn't subtly check for EMF, walking away to get water then coming back in like two seconds to ask if they wanted ice. Basically doing anything within his power to stop them from being able to check for a decent reading.

Dean was contemplating snapping at the guy, but before he got a chance they heard the sound of a key turning in the door. Which wouldn't have been a problem if Lee did, in fact, live there like he claimed to.

But he'd quickly declared, "We gotta go."

To which John, reasonably, had asked, "What the hell?"

And Lee had said, "I don't live here."

Which lead to the three of them having to make a hasty escape out the damn window. Lee had actually pushed Dean out before he could jump, something Dean would still bitch about for the rest of their friendship, however long it ended up lasting.

His first instinct had actually been to kick Lee's ass, but unfortunately the woman who actually lived in the apartment put that on hold by threatening to call the cops. The three of them had to make a break for it.

Lee's truck was parked in the same parking lot they'd parked the Impala, but somehow he'd wound up in the backseat of their car. John started up the car and drove them a few blocks down to some quiet old diner. The three of them drove the whole way in dead silence, Dean torn between laughter and, like he mentioned before, kicking Lee's ass.

Only after they'd parked in the diner's lot did John turn around and say, "I take it you're a hunter?"

And Dean knew right away that, dumbass or not, Lee had good instincts. Because he answered with a simple, "Yes, sir."

John had cracked a smile. A god damn smile. Then of course he'd wanted an explanation.

"I was checking the place for EMF, same as you," Lee said with a shrug. He nodded towards Dean and added, "Plus I was at the library when him and his sidekick were reading up on local deaths, figured you folks had to be some other hunters."

Right. Now he mentioned it, Dean sort of did remember seeing the guy's face around at the library. Sort of. Not that he could blame his lack of noticing a lot of people on being super focused on the research. He'd let Sammy do most of the reading, while he tested to see how many pencils he could get to stick in the ceiling before the librarian noticed.

(The answer, by the way, he remembered was twelve. Like he said, important details.)

Lee told them the rest of his side of the story, how he'd got onto the case and that he'd checked the apartment for EMF before they got there. His information was at least enough to confirm it was a spirit.

Dean still had one question, though. "If you weren't s'pposed to be in that apartment, why the hell did you open the door? Without your damn shirt?"

Lee had opened his mouth to answer, reconsidered and closed it again, then reconsidered once more to answer. He said, "I thought it'd made it look more like it was my apartment."

"So you're an idiot," John answered.

"I don't know that I'd--"

"It wasn't a question," Dean said, shaking his head.

And when it looked like Lee wasn't really sure whether he could laugh or not, Dean had shot him a small, encouraging grin. Because it had been damn stupid, but it was, admittedly, after the fact, sort of funny.

So the three of them had gone inside the diner and ordered some food. Dean would have to bring something back for Sammy, who was back at the motel because he, for some reason, thought keeping up with schoolwork was way cooler than fucking ghost hunting.

Over dinner they got to talking, and that was how Dean decided that, while he still sort of wanted to kick the guy's ass, Lee wasn't half bad. He had a lot of wild hunting stories that, despite seeming totally implausible, also felt totally believable. He took his coffee black, and when Creedence Clearwater Revival came on over the radio he nodded his head to the music. Dean pretty much had to like him.

When they got back on topic, Lee wanted to know what John and Dean had rounded up about the case. The only violent death in town for like the past century, everyone's research agreed, had been this old hag of a nurse that got run down in a car accident.

Well, a not so accidental accident.

But Lee's research team didn't have a Sammy. And, by extension, Lee didn't have the records telling where the woman was buried. But Dean did.

"Figure we can hit up the graveyard tonight after the sun goes down," John said, wiping his hands on a napkin that had clearly seen better days. "Problem taken care of."

"Mind if I tag along?"

They went their separate ways after the diner. John drove Lee back to the apartment building's lot, where he'd left his truck, while Dean took a burger and some fries back to the motel for Sammy. It wasn't too far a walk, especially now the wind had lightened up.

But sundown found the three of them in the graveyard, shovels and duffel bags in hand.

It was while they searched for the right grave that they learned Lee had basically been hunting on his own for the past three years. How he'd got into it, he didn't say. But Dean felt an odd sort of protectiveness towards the guy, despite barely knowing him.

Hunting was always a dangerous game, that was just a simple fact of it. But at least whenever Dean went into anything, he knew he had John to back him up. Sammy too. No matter how much the kid complained about wanting a normal life, they could count on him. And whatever Sam or John did, they always had Dean.

But going into that shit on your own? Well that was a whole different story.

They salted and burned the old nurse without a hitch. Which, counterintuitive as it may seem, wasn't a good sign.

"I don't like it," John said, looking out at the quiet around the graveyard.

"Should be me saying that," Lee said, swinging his shovel over his shoulder. "I did most'a the digging."

"Shut up," Dean said, nudging the back of Lee's knee with the end of his own shovel and chuckling when he stumbled.

Lee cursed at him, turning and elbowing Dean in the ribs as retaliation. The playfighting ended there, all John had to do was clear his throat and both of them were back to business, like good soldiers.

"She shouldn't've gone so quiet," John said, tone implying he should've have to explain his concern to either of them. He was right, the both of them had salted and burned their fair share of ghosts before. "I'm thinking maybe we got the wrong ghost."

"She was the only violent death in town," Dean pointed out.

"Violent deaths aren't the only thing that make angry ghosts. Come on, Dean, I taught you better than that."

Until they knew more, that was the end of what they could accomplish at the graveyard. The three of them left again, with plans for Dean and Lee to reunite early next morning to do some more digging around town. They didn't know for sure they'd been wrong about the nurse, but John insisted they check, so check they would.

Lee met him outside the motel, and Dean knew he liked him for a reason when he saw he'd brought coffee.

They were halfway back to the apartment building to talk with the vic's roommate when they spotted some police lights off the side of the road. The gas station, of all places, had been taped off, while a group of townspeople gathered around to ogle at what looked like a crime scene.

They exchanged one look, and Lee pulled over to check it out.

The local flatfeet wouldn't let them onto the scene, of course. Their combined "babyfaces"--cop's words--didn't do a whole lot to sell their fake I.D.s, and she told them to scram before she had to arrest them. Or whatever. But the townspeople were a lot more willing to talk to them, as small town people tend to be willing to talk to just about anyone.

They didn't learn a whole bunch about whose spirit it could've been, but they did learn that it was an old man who'd died inside. An old man who happened to be the husband of the last victim.

"No way that's a coincidence," Dean said as they made their way back to Lee's truck. Then, "We gotta talk about your truck, man."

With a wounded expression, Lee said, "What about my truck?"

"This door is about a gust of wind away from falling off, that's what," Dean said, piling into the passenger seat. The door squeaked slightly when he shut it behind him, and he just nodded towards it, like that proved the point. "Hear that? She's crying."

"I take fine care of my truck," Lee said, starting the engine. He had to try it a second time to get the engine to actually start, and without looking over at Dean, he said, "Not a word."

Thanks to the aforementioned pencil incident, the librarian wouldn't actually let Dean back inside the building. So he waited outside while Lee went in to look over the old newspapers, see if there was anything they'd missed the last time. In the meantime, Dean got Sammy on the phone to talk about the case, see if the name of that old dead guy rang any bells.

Surprise, surprise, Sammy had the answer.

He'd read about that old guy in the paper. As it turned out, his mother-in-law was the woman who ran that old nurse over with his car. Which didn't clear much up, because the nurse couldn't have been the one to kill him. They'd burned her bones.

"Unless she's attached to something else?" Dean asked.

"Let me finish," Sammy said, and Dean could picture the eye roll clear as day. "There was one person in town who said the car wreck wasn't an accident. I'll give you one guess whose sister it was."

"That nurse hag?"

"She had a name, Dean."

"That's a yes, then. Thanks, Sammy," Dean said, hanging up the phone before Sam could argue.

Dean had to sneak past the librarian to go and get Lee out of the library, but he figured it was worth her wrath to save him from any more useless research.

Sammy's intel was as accurate as usual. Dean knew for sure, because when they went to burn the nurse's sister later that night, the ghost turned up just in time to throw Dean right into a fucking tree.

"I guess we got the right bones," Lee said, hitting the bitch in the shoulder with a salt round.

"Think so?"

Dean put a hand to his forehead, where it had hit the trunk of the tree, and wasn't exactly surprised that it came away bloody. Whatever, he'd had worse. With a slight grunt, he pulled himself back up to his feet, making his way back over to the grave. He shot a look over both shoulders for any sign of her before hopping back in to finish with the digging.

She showed up again a few seconds later. The bitch was quick, but Lee's aim turned out to be quicker, and she'd flickered away as fast as she'd appeared.

Dean broke through the top of her casket with a few strong jabs from the tip of his shovel, then Lee held a hand out to help him up out of the grave. Dean took it, letting Lee pull him up and out, and just slightly losing his balance once he was back on level ground.

Lee caught him before he could actually stumble, one hand still holding his and the other on his shoulder to steady him. He whistled and said, "Y'okay there, Dean?"

"I'm good," he said. But he might've hit his head on that tree a little harder than he thought, 'cause it took him a little longer than it should've to step away from Lee.

Lee watched him for a second, most likely to make sure he wasn't actually going to fall over, then turned to pour the gasoline down into the grave. Dean struck a match and threw it in.

They stood there for a moment to make sure the flame took, then they were off.

Back at the relative safety of Lee's truck, they walked around the back to tuck their shovels in the bed. Dean had already turned to start for the passenger side door when Lee cleared his throat, patting the tailgate when Dean turned to see what he wanted. Dean just raised an eyebrow, then hid a wince when it aggravated the cut on his forehead.

"Sit down a sec," Lee said. "Lemme take a look at that."

"This?" Dean asked, touching a hand to his forehead with a scoff. "It ain't that bad, man. I've had papercuts that bled worse."

"See if you're still singing the same tune when you get an infection."

"You're worse than Sam," Dean said, rolling his eyes but moving to sit down in the bed of the truck.

Lee shook his head, retrieving what looked like a homemade first aid kit from the backseat and walking back over. Dean doubted he could see much of anything with just the streetlight, and whatever the moon offered, but he sat still while Lee poured some rubbing alcohol out on a cotton ball. He winced a little when the alcohol touched the cut. He still maintained that it wasn't that bad, but well, alcohol on an open wound always made it hurt worse okay. 

"Don't be such a baby," Lee said, with very little bite behind his words.

But Dean must've been moving too much for this, because Lee moved his free hand to the back of Dean's head to hold him still. It was, he couldn't help but notice, a little close. Close enough that he could smell the coffee on Lee's breath.

Lee kept his hand at the back of Dean's head for just a second longer after pulling the cotton ball away, narrowing his eyes to check there wasn't any dirt in the wound. He pulled a band-aid out of the first aid kit and put it on over the cut, a lot gentler than was actually necessary.

He wasn't about to admit it, but it was kind of nice. The cut on his forehead wasn't a bad one, he knew that. But it was, momentarily, nice to be taken care of, just for something small. Lee ran his hand through Dean's hair before taking it away, deliberately messing it up on top with a laugh, and Dean was just a little disappointed to have the contact taken away so quickly.

He blinked a few times, blaming the weird train of thought on the lack of sleep last night. Your brain gave you weird thoughts when you were tired.

He snagged one of the clean cotton balls and threw it at Lee, where it bounced off his nose and fell back to the bed of the truck.

Lee drove him back to the motel, switching on the radio as he pulled out into the street. Neither of them knew the song on the radio well enough to justify it, but Dean reached out and cranked the volume up, and when Lee crooned along to the lyrics, Dean joined in with him.

The life of a hunter was a messy one. Disorganized and crazy, every job bringing a new town, new faces, and new stories to tell.

Dean knew Lee's wasn't a name or face he was likely to forget soon, but as they left town the next day, he couldn't help hoping they'd run into him again. Soon.


	2. The Weight

The second time their paths crossed was somewhere between three and seven months later. It was difficult to tell on the road, and well, it wasn't like Dean was keeping track. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't have been all that surprised if he'd never seen Lee again.

Which was probably why he was so damn excited when they did reunite.

Dean had just turned twenty-one. He remembered, because it was something of a novelty to get to use his real I.D. to get into the bar, instead of a fake one. Not that it mattered that time, Sammy looked just as seventeen as he was and they didn't even give him a shot at using his fake I.D, just let him right on in. It was just that sort of a joint.

They weren't even there on a hunt. Just breezing through town until they stumbled over something worth their time.

He'd stepped away from John and Sammy conning some idiots at the pool table in favor of talking to this waitress-which, in honesty, had a lot less to do with wanting another drink, and a lot more to do with the cut of her shirt, and the way she smiled at him--when he heard what he could've sworn was a familiar voice. He turned to look and saw what he knew was a familiar face.

He was clean shaven this time. A little taller than when they first met, a little brawnier too, but Dean would know him anywhere.

"Lee Webb? Son'uv'a bitch, is that you?"

Lee turned, and Dean could still see that grin that'd lit up his face when he recognized him, clear as day. He haphazardly tossed the darts he'd been holding onto the nearest table, heading over and clapping Dean on the shoulder with a shout of, "Dean fucking Winchester, I'll be damned!"

They spent awhile catching up.

It was kinda funny. The last time they'd met had only been about two days, but for a second meeting, it felt an awful lot like reuniting with an old friend. Or what Dean imagined reuniting with an old friend was, anyway. He didn't have a lot to go on at the time. But they swapped stories and laughs and Dean ribbed him about the old truck. And it occurred to him that for the first time in a very, very long time he was able to just talk to someone. Easily, and without any pretense.

Then Lee asked, "Hey, where's the rest of the gang? Your old man, and...it's Sam, right?"

"Making an honest living," Dean said with a grin, nodding towards the pool table.

From the looks of it, it was working a bit too well. The other guys around the table weren't yelling yet, but from the looks of it they were pretty close. Not that either of them couldn't handle themselves, but Dean sidestepped to Lee's other side, so he was close enough to step in, should the need crop up.

"You all working a case, or...?" Lee let the end of the question hang in the air. It was likely he wasn't sure what it was they would be doing if they weren't on a hunt. Some days, Dean thought even he didn't know what he'd be doing if he weren't on a hunt. But he answered that they were just passing through, and Lee wagged his eyebrows at him and said, "Did you want to be working a case?"

"You got something in town?"

"Just outside of it," Lee said. "Looks like a couple vamps. Nothing I couldn't handle myself, but I wouldn't mind some extra company."

Without a thought, Dean said, "Count us in."

And Lee had just been about to delve into the details of the case; which Dean was real interested to hear, if Lee had been able to spot something that both he and John had managed to miss. But the intel would have to wait, because, like Dean had been expecting, a fight broke out.

It wasn't at the pool table, though. No, some dick down at the bar had apparently overstayed his welcome. From across the room all the details were tough to tell, but it looked like he'd grabbed this blonde by the arm and, if her yelling at him was anything to go by, she wasn't all too into it. What Dean's actual plan had been he didn't think he ever knew, but he made his way over to the bar anyway.

He stepped in between the guy and the girl, effectively shoving his arm away from her. Leaning against the counter, he said, "Now I wasn't eavesdropping, but I could'a swore I heard the lady tell you she ain't interested."

"You're paraphrasing, kid," Lee said, stepping up next to Dean and resting an elbow on his shoulder. "She told you to go to hell, clear as day."

"What're you, her brothers? What d'you care?"

The guy took a step forward, like that would intimidate either of them. When it didn't work he made some half assed threat that was as unoriginal as it was stupid.

The rest of their conversation was something of a blur in Dean's memory, but somehow they wound up at Lee challenging the dick to an arm wrestle, with the condition that they'd back off if the guy won. The asshole could only have agreed as a point of pride, seeing as they'd already made enough of a distraction for the girl to slip away.

Lee ditched his jacket on a bar stool, and the two of them got set up for their competition. Right before it started, Lee shot a conspiratorial wink in Dean's direction before asking the guy, "You ever play by Wyoming rules?"

Whatever the hell 'Wyoming rules' was, Dean was confident Lee had just made it up on the spot. His suspicions were confirmed when the guy asked, "Wyoming rules?"

Lee went on to explain, "I'll make it simple. Instead of pushing towards the table, the opponent's gotta pull their hand back towards their chest. Meaning that when I pull your hand to my chest here, I'll be the winner, and you and your ugly mug have to leave. Unless you think you're not up for the challenge?"

What exactly Lee's plan was, Dean had no clue in hell. But he saw right through that deliberate overconfidence. Luckily the other guy was too stupid to catch on. His face got even angrier, not that Dean had thought it possible, and he agreed without a second thought.

It was something that Dean remembered well, because it had been the hardest he'd laughed in fucking _months._ When the arm wrestle started and Lee just let right go of his hand. Because of how hard he'd been pulling, that asshole wound up punching himself in his own damn face. It was hilarious, Dean laughed so hard he choked on his beer.

Of course, they didn't get to laugh very long. Unsurprisingly, the end result of that stunt was the three of them getting into a fight. Which, when it turned out the guy had friends at the bar, quickly turned into the five of them getting into a fight.

It didn't matter. Dean had always been good in a fight, and it turned out Lee was, too. About as tough as they came, actually.

Well aware the bar staff wouldn't care who won the fight, they made their hasty exit before they could be charged for any of the damage they'd caused, failing to hide their grins as they went.

It had been, all things considered, a great night.

John hadn't even been mad at Dean for getting into another bar fight. He'd been about to be, sure, but then he'd recognized Lee Webb standing next to Dean in the parking lot, and Lee's proposition of a vamp hunt had been enough of a distraction to save the angry lecture for another night.

The four of them got together way too early the next morning--John was as unsympathetic to Lee's hangover complaints as he was to Dean's--to talk shop over shitty diner coffee and shittier diner breakfast.

"I got one more thing to ask you," Dean said after the run down, setting his empty mug back down on the table in front of him. Lee raised his eyebrows and tilted his head a little to the side, like Dean had noticed he did when he was curious. Dean cracked a grin and said, "How the hell did you make it out here in one piece in that piece of shit truck of yours?"

Lee wadded up a napkin and threw it at Dean's face.

\--

The first hunt Dean and Lee worked just the two of them was a few weeks later.

Lee had called John asking for some backup on this thing with a possible witch. Thing was, they were reasonably close by, but they were also in the middle of a case of their own. John's solution had been for him and Sammy to finish up there, and to send Dean out to meet Lee.

John had been unwilling to let Dean take the car, of course, so Dean found himself hitchhiking most of the way out. Lee picked him up a few hours out from town, and drove them the rest of the way, windows down and music cranked up about as high as it would go. It seemed neither of them even thought to talk about the witch the whole damn drive.

They pulled into town just about noon. Stopped by the closest Gas'N'Sip for some fuel, both for themselves and the truck, and then headed back to the old house Lee was squatting in for the time being. Because of course, they were in the middle of nowhere and somehow the only motel was full.

"Real five star joint, huh?" Dean cracked, dropping his duffel onto kitchen counter.

"Sad part is, it's not much worse than some of the motels I've stayed in."

They had to lie their way into the morgue, when they went to investigate the latest death, a woman by the name of Beth. Both of them still looked to young to pass too well as law enforcement, but the M.E. bought that they were med students doing research on a paper. And she was just fed up enough with working all day to let them in without checking with her boss, who they claimed to have spoken with earlier in the day about getting a look inside.

By the time they left it was too late to check out where the victim had been killed, it was some dump of gym that didn't stay open past three in the afternoon. So instead they swung by her house, to talk with her roommate, a redheaded chick named Jenny or something like that.

Lee told her they were the dead girl's cousins and, when Jenny seemed just a little skeptical, Dean was able to charm their way in by commenting how nice the flowers on the windowsill were. Flashed Jenny a rueful smile and said, "I know those must be your doing. She always hated gardening."

Jenny mirrored his smile and let them in to talk.

"How'd you know she hated gardening?" Lee whispered as they walked in.

"Lucky guess?"

They talked with roommate for a bit, and Lee made an excuse to slip off and investigate the rest of the house by asking where the bathroom was. Pretty soon after they bailed.

"So guess what I found in Beth's room?" Lee said as they piled into the truck. He pulled what was definitely a hex bag out of his jacket pocket, tossing it towards Dean.

Dean caught it, inspecting it with a small frown. "That don't make sense."

"What, why not?"

"She died at the gym, man. Hex bag that killed her would be at the gym," he said. "Which means either we got a really prepared witch on our hands, or..."

"There's two witches," Lee said. Dean nodded, tossing the hex bag over his shoulder into the back seat of the truck. Lee started the truck, then shot a look across at Dean and said, "How do you feel about Chinese food?"

Over dinner they talked a couple theories before getting sidetracked. Then they headed back to the house. Well, house might have been a generous term. But the walls hadn't come down yet, and the yard, while dead, was several acres, so it wasn't like there were a whole lot of neighbors to notice them trespassing.

Dean rummaged through the news articles Lee had already been looking through on the case, to catch up on all the info and see if there was anything he missed. Lee cracked open a couple of beers, passing one to Dean before finding a spot to sit on the floor and clean a couple of guns. For the most part they sat in a pleasant silence, occasionally shooting a comment at each other before refocusing.

Some time and a few more beers later they decided to scout the house for the best place to sleep. There was a broken windowpane downstairs that let in the cold night air, so they figured upstairs was their best bet.

It was in one of the upstairs bedrooms that they found, off in a corner collecting dust, an old acoustic guitar. The frame was scraped up and it was missing the B string, but otherwise it was in okay condition. Dean went to the opposite corner to toss out a sleeping bag, but Lee went over to pick up the guitar. He strummed it once, winced at the sound it made, then strummed it again.

"The hell are you doing, man?"

"To be honest, I got no clue," Lee said, strumming the guitar again like an idiot. Over the noise he said, "I never learned the guitar."

"And you thought you would now?"

Lee shrugged.

"It's not even tuned," Dean said, shucking his flannel and placing at the head of his sleeping bag to use as a pillow. He looked back to see Lee fidgeting with the tuning keys, unsuccessfully. Rolling his eyes, he held out a hand and said, "Alright, give it here, I'll show you."

"You play?"

"Not really," he answered, taking the guitar anyway when Lee passed it to him. It took him a minute to get the tuning right, and he was pretty sure he didn't, actually. But he got it to at least a halfway decent sound, and then went to hand it back over to Lee, who'd sat down on the floor a foot or so in front of him.

Lee shook his head, gesturing at the guitar and saying, "Nah, man. Play me something."

"No."

"Aw, c'mon. When's the next time you're gonna come across a decent guitar in the wild?"

"In the wild?" Dean raised an eyebrow with a small chuckle, but Lee offered no further defense of his comment. Just sat there waiting. So, despite being bone tired and no good at guitar, and having witches to hunt in the morning, he gave an exaggerated sigh and set the guitar back over his thigh, moving a hand up to the fretboard. He looked up and said, "What d'you wanna hear?"

After some back and forth of Lee suggesting songs that Dean either hadn't learned the chords to or just refused to play on an acoustic guitar missing a string, he found himself bullshitting his way through _The Weight._ It was one of the first songs he'd learned, and so one of the only songs he felt somewhat confident playing after not picking up a guitar for at least a year.

Lee knew enough of the song to sing along for the second verse, and only the second verse. Dean forgot a chord a couple times, and he definitely flubbed a lyric or two, but when the song was finished Lee clapped for him and they both laughed. Then Lee said, "Teach me?"

Dean scoffed. "Maybe later. Right now, can we get some damn sleep?"

In the morning they swung by Beth's gym, found the second hex bag they'd been pretty much expecting to find. Then they did some digging with the girl's other friends and family, trying to find out who there was that wanted her dead. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere, finding one person who wanted one chick dead shouldn't have been that difficult. And yet they were looking for two people, and they did a whole day's worth of work with about nothing to show for it.

They got dinner at the Chinese place again. It was one of two restaurants in town, and the other one was named after a Bible verse, so they figured they knew which was the better bet, for ambience at least.

Dean called Sammy after dinner just to check in. 

It was back at the house that Dean remembered Jenny, or more specifically the windowsill flowers. They were, now he thought about it, the only flowers in town that didn't seem to be struggling with the drought. Around the same time, Lee pointed out that one of Jenny's and Beth's mutual friends had just got some promotion at work that literally no one thought she deserved.

They were both pretty sure Beth, Jenny, and friend number three had been doing most of their witching together. Something must've gone bad, and they decided they had to get rid of Beth.

"Two witches, two hunters," Lee said. "I like our odds."

He had to go and say it, too. Not a second later he was coughing up blood.

Dean wasted a full two seconds freaking out, instinctively reaching out towards Lee, although what that would help he had no idea. Then it clicked, and he was darting around the room in search of the hex bag. He spilled about the whole contents of Lee's rucksack onto the floor, coming up empty. "Damn witches. C'mon, where is it?"

Eventually he found it, tucked away under Lee's sleeping bag. He tossed it into the fire place and, not wanting to take time with a match, just flicked a lighter open and tossed that in too. He was back at Lee's side in an instant.

Helping him back up off the ground with Lee's arm thrown over his shoulders, Dean breathed out a sigh of relief and said, "Y'okay there, Lee?"

"Swell," he said, clearing his throat. After a moment he'd got enough energy back to not need to lean quite so heavily on Dean, but he kept his arm there all the same. He said, "Alright, what do you say we go kill ourselves some witches?"

And that's just what they did.

It turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than they'd been expecting when they went in, but they both came out alive and neither of the witches did, so Dean would call it a success. Even despite his annoying as hell nosebleed (What the hell was it with witches and fluids?), or the fresh bruise forming over Lee's left eye.

They celebrated their success by going out for a few too many drinks at the only bar around, a place on the outskirts of town by the name of Crunchy's. It was mostly an empty place, whether that was because of the location or it being eight o'clock on a Wednesday night, they couldn't really tell. It didn't matter. They had a great time anyway.

Greater still was the next morning, largely because they had the good fortune to get to sleep through it. No alarms were set to wake them, and they'd both evidently done enough drinking the night before that the sunlight coming in through the window wasn't enough to wake them.

When Dean finally did gather the energy to get up, Lee's sleeping bag across the room was already empty. He'd been about to wonder where the hell he'd gone off to when Lee showed up in the doorway, carrying what appeared to be a pair of paper plates, filled with bacon and pancakes. Dean sat up immediately at the prospect of food.

"Guess who cooked breakfast?" Lee said, a proud grin on his face as he flopped onto the floor across from Dean.

Dean hummed. "That's a tough one. Seeing as there's only two of us, and I don't think I did. I'll never guess."

"That's right, you didn't. Sass me at your own risk, Winchester," Lee said, holding the plate just out of Dean's reach, but he was still smiling. He went to hand it over, but pulled it away one more time before Dean could actually accept it. Raising an infuriating eyebrow, he said, "Who's the best?"

"You are. Now gimme the damn food," he said, failing to suppress a small grin. Lee laughed and finally handed the plate over. He took out a couple of forks from his pocket, but before he could actually pass one over, Dean had already picked up a pancake with his bare hands and dug in. Lee threw the fork at him anyway, and Dean shook his head and asked, "How'd you get the stove to work, anyway?"

"I didn't. But there's a firepit out back in pretty good condition."

After breakfast--which they should've been calling lunch, considering the hour--Dean called John to check in, let him know the witches were taken care of and find out where he wanted Dean to meet them. When John answered that he and Sammy could come meet them in town, it looked like they had at least a few hours to kill before they had to say goodbye.

Somehow, Lee talked Dean into spending them following through on his earlier comment about teaching Lee a few chords on the guitar.

They spent the first fifteen minutes of said music lesson sitting on the floor across from each other, passing the guitar back and forth. Dean would demo a chord progression for him and then pass it back for Lee to give it a try. Dean knew he wasn't the best teacher in the world, but for a little while it sort of worked. Only the damn fool couldn't seem to figure out the C chord no matter how many times Dean showed or told him.

"Dammit, Lee," he said after the umpteenth attempt, earning an unapologetic laugh from Lee. Rather than have him pass the guitar back over to show him again, Dean got up and moved to sit down in the space next to Lee. "Okay, no put your index finger on the first fret, like this."

Dean put his hand over Lee's so he could guide it to the right position. Once the chord was right he could have pulled his hand away but he kept it there, which he rationalized, because Lee would be just enough of a dumbass to immediately mess up the chord once Dean moved away.

The moment wasn't actually more than a few seconds, but in Dean's memory it always seemed longer.

They were sitting so close, their shoulders pressed against each other. And while Dean never found out if he did or not, he was always paranoid that Lee caught the soft hitch in his breath. When he glanced away from the fretboard for just a second to look over at Lee, and Lee's eyes, instead of on the guitar, were already on him.

When Dean caught him looking, Lee looked just faintly, for some reason, embarrassed. Looking away with a hint of a smile on his lips, he asked, "So just strum now?"

Dean quickly dropped his hand away with a small nod. He cleared his throat and said, "Uh. Yeah. Strum now."

\--

They kept well in touch after that. Went on a few more hunts together, a few with John and Sammy tagging along and a few just the two of them. And Dean's mind totally didn't keep wondering back to that moment in the empty house with the guitar, or the way Lee's hand sort of lingered a little too long whenever he pat Dean on the shoulder, because that would've been...weird.

In fact, a few months into them officially being something Dean would call friends--probably even best friends, although Dean didn't have many to compare him to. It wasn't a life that lead to a ton of connections--Dean found himself seriously considering not picking up the phone when Lee called. After all, whatever the hell Dean's head was trying to pull on him, it seemed like it was only really a problem when Lee was around. No Lee meant no weird, crazy, _wrong_ thoughts.

He kept picking up anyway, of course.

Whatever was going on with Dean, it didn't mean Lee didn't deserve backup on a hunt. It didn't mean the friendship they'd built had to be tossed out the window.

But it only occurred to Dean that there wasn't anything wrong with him after about a year of knowing the guy. Whenever Dean got scraped up in a fight Lee was almost uncharacteristically careful patching him up, and it was after one such occasion that everything started to make sense.

They were sitting around an old wooden table in the middle of some campgrounds, Lee's truck parked a little ways off, and the first aid kit sprawled out on the table. Dean was on the bench, with Lee sitting perched on the table top in front of him. John and Sammy were off in town somewhere; they'd gone to get some supplies and hadn't made it back before Dean and Lee had found the wendigo's nest and, well, both of them were impulsive enough to head in alone. It turned out okay for them, but Dean wasn't looking forward to John's lecture about running into things half-assed.

"Remind me again how you wound up punching a wall of solid rock?" Lee asked.

The shit-eating grin on his face was the obvious indicator that he didn't actually need a reminder. Well, that and the fact that he'd been there when Dean had done it. It had been stupid, Dean knew. And he regretted it, less because of the fucking pain his knuckles were in, and more because it was obvious he wasn't going to hear the end of that one for awhile.

Not that he could stay too pissed at Lee, seeing as Lee was currently wrapping Dean's knuckles in gauze for him. Actually, if he was pissed at anyone, it was himself for how difficult he was finding it to focus on anything else but Lee's hand in his.

"Shut your trap," Dean said, looking away and taking a swig of beer. "You know damn well I wasn't aiming for the wall."

"And you know damn well how quick a wendigo is. But you tried to punch it anyway."

Dean just glared, taking another sip from his beer while Lee chuckled. It turned out to be kind of hard to keep the sour look on his face while Lee was laughing, though, so after a second Dean caved and found himself laughing under his breath, too. Shaking his head, he said, "Y'know, you're bitching an awful lot for someone whose ass I just saved by punching that wall."

"You missed, how did you save me?"

"Distraction, duh."

"Oh, distraction, of course. That's what you were doing when you got knocked on your ass."

"Yeah, you're welcome."

"My fucking hero," Lee said, rolling his eyes. He finished wrapping the gauze over Dean's knuckles then, and gave Dean's forearm a small pat before pulling his hand away. "You're all set."

"What's the verdict, doc? Am I gonna make it?"

"Try not to punch anymore damn caves, and you should live, yeah," Lee said with a snort, stealing a sip from Dean's beer rather than getting up and getting his own from the cooler a few feet away from them. Dean asked how punching walls would kill him exactly, and Lee answered with, "Because if I have to patch your ass up one more time, I'm killing you myself."

Dean scoffed, snatching his beer back with his good hand. "You make it sound like I'm some sort of a reckless idiot."

"Hate to break it to ya, cowboy, but you are," he answered. Dean pulled a mock frown, and Lee said, "Awe, don't gimme that look. You're a reckless idiot 'cause you're brave, it's what I like about you."

"And here I thought it was just my rugged good looks," Dean quipped.

"Yeah, that, too."

Dean chuckled, taking another sip of his beer. A sip of beer he almost choked on when Lee just looked at him, and he realized Lee hadn't said it like he was joking around. He'd said it like it was a simple fact. Like he meant it. The best response could come up with was to splutter and say, "Sorry, what?"

He looked up at Lee, scanning his expression for the sign that he was just messing around. His breath caught in his chest when his gaze found Lee's pale blue eyes searching his own. What they were searching for, he couldn't say. But Lee didn't laugh and say something to prove he was just messing around. No, instead he said, "Don't look so shocked. Here I thought I was being obvious...Dean?"

Right, Dean was supposed to say something.

"Obvious?" he echoed dumbly.

Lee shook his head and, probably because he realized Dean wouldn't get or accept the message any other way, reached one hand out to lightly grab Dean's wrist. He put his other hand just under Dean's chin, and Dean titled his head up to actually look at him. Lee didn't actually say anything, he just raised a single eyebrow, as if to ask, 'Get it now?'

Frankly, it didn't feel real. Even looking back, it still didn't. Somehow he'd managed to feel as utterly confused as he could imagine, and yet, at the same time, it suddenly felt like everything made sense.

"Is this," Dean asked. "Is this some sort of a joke, or. what?"

"No joke." And when Dean didn't immediately answer, or react really--he didn't think he'd felt so much like a deer in the headlights in years--Lee frowned ever so slightly, pulling his hand away from Dean's face. The one at his wrist stayed, though. He said, "I mean, if I read things wrong and you ain't interested, tell me. I'll back off."

"No," Dean said.

To be fair, he could've been clearer.

Lee took it as a No, and quickly let go of Dean's wrist with a murmured apology. He moved to hop off the table and walk away, too, but Dean managed to break out of the trance in his head in time to stop him, putting his hand on Lee's wrist then. Lee froze, looking back down at him with his eyebrows furrowed. Dean was saying, "Wait. Not no like no. I meant no, you didn't read things wrong. Shit, I ain't usually this awkward."

Lee had to go and laugh, which somehow only made Dean feel all the more flustered. He settled back into his seat atop the table and asked with an insufferable grin, "What, do I make you nervous or something?"

"Get over yourself," Dean said, releasing his grip on Lee's wrist in favor of smacking him in the arm. They both snickered, and it at least somewhat took the edge of whatever awkwardness Dean felt at the circumstance. The smile was still on his face when he looked off at the trees to say, "Shut up. I've just never done this before. You know what I mean."

"Right. Dean Winchester, the Ladies Man," Lee said, with a small wink.

Dean smacked him again. It seemed the appropriate response. He shook his head and, under his breath, murmured, "I fuckin' hate you."

Dean's heartbeat was practically doing double-time when Lee reached a hand out, carding his fingers through Dean's hair and coming to a rest at the nape of his neck. With a smirk, Lee answered, "Oh, I don't think you do."

They just looked at each other for a moment, while Dean allowed himself one more second's indecision. Then, confident Lee could probably hear his heart pounding in his chest, but also confident that just didn't matter, he leaned forward and closed the distance between them. As he did, he had the distinct feeling a very large weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.


	3. Pale Blue Eyes

Looking back it seemed foolish, but there was a time, however brief, in which Dean Winchester was certain that Lee Webb would be a part of his life forever.

To be fair, it had felt damn foolish at the time, too.

It was practically in the job description that nobody they knew stuck around forever. More than that, it was a significant pattern of Dean's life, that almost nobody he knew stuck around forever. But in the moments they got to spend together outside of hunting, it was far too easy to forget about that simple fact. And yeah Dean knew he was being an idiot, but it felt nice, to get to be an idiot for awhile.

Even after he left, though--and even after everything that happened when they found each other again all those years later--Lee was still something special.

They were never officially dating or anything like that. Okay maybe they were, but it wasn't something they talked about. Just something they sort of fell into. It was easy in a way few things in Dean's life were.

Lee was the first person since Cassie Robinson that Dean had been stupid enough to let himself get attached to. And given how things had ended with her, he'd expected to be less okay with that fact. But it was like he said, things with Lee were easy. It didn't matter that they had to sneak around all the time because, while it would've been nice to not have to hide what they really had, keeping it a secret meant there was finally something in Dean's life that felt like it was just his.

He could talk to Lee and know he would get it, because he was a hunter. In fact, whenever they were working cases in separate states, he could not talk to Lee for days and Lee would get it, because he was a hunter.

He always knew Lee had his back in a fight and, almost more important, he didn't think he'd laughed so hard, so often in his life. They went on hunts together, worked on Lee's piece of shit truck together, sang along to the radio as loud and obnoxiously as they could. And, on one memorable occasion, even went on a normal camping trip together. No monsters or anything.

Lee knew Dean better than he'd let anyone know him in a long time, and it was easy.

"I just don't get it, man."

"I'm not having this conversation again."

Well, okay, maybe not _everything_ about Lee was easy.

For example, sometimes he wasn't the best listener. Like just then, when he decided to keep talking. "Look, you already know I got nothing against your old man. But I don't get it. He sends you one text and you gotta drop everything and run?"

"For Christ--What's to drop, Lee? It's not like we're working a case right now, and he needs my help."

"If he needs your help he can call you, can't he? Or maybe send something more than just some fucking coordinates," Lee said. Dean didn't see why it was an issue; sure, it might be nice to have some more details before he drove all the way to California, but coordinates were quick and efficient. They'd had this debate enough times that before Dean could reply, Lee turned to glare at him and said, "And don't tell me coordinates are just easier."

"They are," he said, earning an eye roll in response. "What's the damn problem?"

"The damn problem is John ordering you around like you ain't nothing but some mindless little soldier when I know you're better than that. The problem is, you let him. When are you gonna start thinking for yourself, Dean?"

Which Dean answered with the super cutting response of, "Fuck you."

And maybe he only got so pissed because he knew there was a little bit of truth to Lee's words--there was that inherent flaw with letting people know you--but at the time, he didn't see it that way. No, all he really saw was the coordinates his dad had sent him, and that he should get out of Lee's stupid truck before either of them could say anything they'd actually regret.

"Just 'cause you don't wanna hear it don't mean it's not true, Dean."

"Alright, I'm not gonna sit around here explaining how fucking loyalty works to you," he said. And Lee opened his mouth to say something back, but Dean didn't give him the chance. Swinging the passenger side door open, Dean said, "Forget it, Lee. I'll go to Florida by myself."

"Dammit, Winchester. Would you listen to me?"

Dean flipped him the bird, hopped out of the truck out into the empty parking lot they'd been having this discussion in for the last twenty minutes, and started walking.

He didn't talk to Lee for a little over two weeks after that, but that was normal whether or not they'd gotten into a fight. Sometimes they just went separate ways on cases, and the most they had time for was an 'I'm still alive' text every few days.

When they did meet back up again, they didn't even bring up their little disagreement. Just fell right back into their old rhythm. It was sort of a pattern with them. They could go however long apart, for whatever reason, but when they were back together it was like they'd switched the reset button. Like they'd never been apart in the first place.

They spent a little time catching up at a bar, bickering over whose turn it was to buy the drinks and getting a little too over-competitive over a game of darts. (Which Dean totally won, by the way.) Eventually, Lee conversationally asked how John and Sammy were doing. "They around right now, or...?"

What Dean was actually asking, Dean had come to learn, when he asked where the others were, was just how much of Dean's personal space he could get away with invading. It was a more than welcome invitation, especially considering the last two weeks Dean had had.

It was while they were working the case John had called Dean to California for that Sam announced he was leaving them in favor of going to Stanford. Needless to say, that conversation hadn't gone over too well. The next ten days between that debate and meeting up with Lee at the bar had been nothing but stress. A bit of a distraction, especially one as familiar as Lee, was just what he needed.

"Well, Dad's working a case in New Mexico," Dean said.

And he knew he'd read the question right because Lee stepped up closer. "That so?"

"And I got a case to work in the morning," Dean said. He matched Lee's step forward and added, "But until then...I'm all yours."

Suffice to say, they didn't stay at the bar too long.

He spent the next four or five days tracking a family of ghouls with Lee. Finding the bastards had been a bigger challenge than ganking them turned out to be. In fact, Dean was pretty sure the one bruise he came out of the fight with was actually from Lee. That dumbass had decked Dean in the face after mistaking him for one of the ghouls when he came around a corner too quick.

It wasn't like he'd done any real damage, but Lee was dreaming if he thought Dean would be letting that go any time soon.

"You're buying me breakfast," Dean said the next day, as they walked into the diner across the road from their hotel. They'd been eating there all week just because it was cheap and close, and Dean was confident the waitress was onto them, because she'd stopped flirting with him around day three.

"I bought dinner," Lee pointed out as they sat down in the booth by the window.

"You bought dinner 'cause it was your turn," Dean said. "You're buying breakfast 'cause you punched me in my damn face."

"And may I say, the black around your eye really makes that green pop."

Dean fought back a laugh at the joke in favor of answering flatly, "I fuckin' hate you."

With a grin, Lee said, "Yeah, I don't think you do."

They joked and bickered some more over breakfast, and awkwardly stumbled over a reply when the waitress told them they made a cute couple. After she walked away, Dean wadded up a napkin and threw it at Lee.

\--

About five weeks later found them parked at a rest area off the side of the road in Utah. The sun was almost set and it had been another several hours to the nearest town or motel. It was a doable drive, but they were headed to meet up with John in Wyoming in a couple of days and, well, Dean was glad to stretch out the time where it was just him and Lee.

The place was a perfect sort of quiet; nobody else was around to be making any noise, not even other cars passing by on the road. Just the sounds of the desert, the low whistle of the breeze, and the melody of the crickets. A song playing distantly on the radio Lee had forgot to shut off, and the occasional creak Lee's truck would make whenever one of them moved.

They were laying in the bed of the truck, passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth between them. Taking a moment to watch the stars wasn't something that Dean often found himself doing, and as he took a sip of the whiskey, he thought maybe he should change that.

Lee mentioned something about how a buddy of his had just taken out a crossroads demon up in Washington. He said, "What would you ask for?"

"From a demon? Nothing. Are you stupid?"

"Shut up, obviously we'd never actually make a deal," Lee said, elbowing Dean softly in the ribs. Then, with a small hum, he said, "But forgetting the part about selling your soul, if you could ask for anything...What would it be, do you think?"

It took him a second.

In part because it seemed like a stupid topic, at the time he was so certain nothing could compel him to do something so stupid as making a deal with a demon. But also in part because, well, what he actually wanted wasn't a question he'd thought to ask himself in a long time. He was set on the path he was on and he just didn't think there was much he'd change.

Maybe having Sam back in his life again, but he dismissed that answer quicker than he could think it. He wanted Sammy to be happy more than he wanted himself to be, and if Sammy's happy was a life in college without Dean or John, then fine, whatever.

It was only after a moment's consideration that Dean answered, "Just this."

Lee scoffed. "Really?"

"Look, I gave up on the whole happy, better, and normal life awhile ago," Dean said. In his own head he blamed the honesty on the whiskey, but he knew he hadn't had enough of it then for that to be true. "All I really need's the open road, some more of this whiskey, and somethin' evil to gank. Y'know, some right to do."

"That's it, huh?"

"And some good company," he answered, shooting a look over at Lee. "But yeah, that's it."

It was like Lee had been expecting a more complicated answer. It was also like something about Dean's answer made him sad. Dean could never figure out why.

There was a second or two of silence, then Dean looked back up at the stars and asked, "How about you? What would you ask for?"

Lee answered like it was a question he thought to ask himself all the time. It was a simple one word reply. He said, "Roots."

"Roots?" Dean echoed.

"Yeah, y'know, a place that's mine. Some solid ground to run back to whenever the open road gets old," he said. He paused to sip from the bottle, but again it wasn't an honesty that could be blamed on the drink. "A home, I guess. And maybe a way to offer a bit of that to other people."

"Swayze's?"

"Swayze's," Lee said, with a nod and a hint of a smile.

Swayze's was the name of a bar that, at the time, only existed inside of Lee's head. An idea that Dean only ever heard him talk about when he was that very specific sort of tipsy. A hint of optimism in the otherwise dark as hell life of a hunter. Dean didn't know if anyone could actually leave the life, but he did know one things.

Roots and home and solid ground sounded a lot more believable coming from Lee.

\--

It was in Arizona that Dean went to an old pawn shop to interrogate some guy about what looked like a vamp attack outside town. He didn't find his vamp, but he did find something else. An old acoustic guitar, one that actually had all the strings.

He figured he had to finally admit how much Lee really meant to him when he found himself deciding to learn a song for him. It was stupid, and sentimental, and probably fell under the category of "chick flick moments," which Dean so claimed to hate. But whatever, nobody but Lee would ever know anyway, and Lee already had a whole ammo of embarrassing info about Dean. What was one more thing?

Dean taught himself to play _Pale Blue Eyes_ by the Velvet Underground.

He almost didn't play the song for Lee, of course. Because if he thought it was stupid while he was trying to learn the song, it was nothing compared to how stupid he felt when he showed Lee the guitar in a quiet moment in their hotel room.

But Lee wasn't exactly gonna let Dean chicken out after he knew they had a guitar anyway.

They sat next to each other on the mattress, because Dean just couldn't play him the song if he had to look at him, he already felt like an idiot. But he played the song, with the sound of the shitty AC as background noise, and with the sun pouring in through the window. And when he'd finished the song Lee kissed him and he didn't feel quite so stupid anymore.

And okay fine, they were totally dating. And it was nice, in a way that few things in Dean's life were.

\--

A year or so later found them back in Arizona.

When he looked at it objectively, Dean knew that there had to have been a lot of things that set Lee onto the path he was on, that made him what he'd become when Dean found the real Swayze's over a decade later. Even so, when he thought back on, he couldn't help but wonder if things would've turned out different, if he'd done things different. Done things better.

It was a good old fashioned ghost hunt.

They rolled into town in time to see the latest crime scene before the bodies had been taken away, and Dean was pretty sure that was where things started to turn. Maybe if they'd missed the scene, maybe things would've gone different.

It was graphic.

Obviously every time somebody died it was bad. Obviously they cared every time, that was why they did what they did. But this one was different. Different enough to throw three seasoned hunters off their game.

"You ever wonder if we're too late?"

Dean looked up. They were sitting at the bar, because they'd done all they could in town for the day and it was probably too early in the night but it was that sort of night. They'd just been sitting at the bar in companionable silence for the past ten minutes, it was that sort of night. He repeated with a frown, "Too late?"

"Y'know, for people," Lee said, as if that would clear things right up. "Sometimes I just think we're too late."

"What're you talking about?"

"Every time we find something evil it's after somebody's already dead. Usually a lotta somebodies." He sipped his drink, although it didn't seem to be helping much, and said, "Those were kids, Dean. It killed _kids_. And if we're right, if this is a ghost we're dealing with, it was something that used to be _human_ that did that. What if we're just fighting a losing battle here?"

Admittedly, Dean hadn't been sure how to answer that.

He knew he was supposed to offer reassurance that obviously they weren't fighting a losing battle. But on days like that one, on cases like that one, it was tough. When every new place they floated into had some other evil lurking in the dark, and when they'd seen the things they'd seen, it was tough.

So instead he answered, "Even if we are, that don't mean we stop fighting."

"I know you like an underdog, but come on, Dean. You're telling me you never think maybe we're wasting our time here?"

"We were too late today, and that's on us," Dean said. "But you know what else is on us, Lee? Making damn sure whatever it is that's out there doesn't get to hurt anybody else. There's people out there we can still help. What d'you think's gonna happen to them if we just throw in the towel, man?"

"I'm not talking about throwing in the towel," Lee said, running a tired hand through his hair.

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I dunno," he said, looking away. Another moment of quiet passed between them, and then Lee said, softer, "It's just tough to feel like we're making a difference, sometimes."

Looking back, Dean saw it for what it was. A second chance to offer some reassurance, to disagree. At the time, all he saw it for was the simple truth.

With a heavy sigh, he looked down at the glass in front of him and said, "Yeah."

It took them almost a week to track down who it was doing the killing. In fact, they didn't figure it out until they met her in person. A ghost of a woman in a brown dress. They found her--well, she found them, while they were digging around the apartment building of one of her earlier victims. She'd killed them decades ago and the place had been empty since. Dean recognized her face from one of the local newspapers he'd been reading through at the library, but he didn't quite have her name. Florence something? Maybe Agnes?

Anyway, it was lucky he remember her, because they only really saw her face for about three seconds, and then she was gone. Or, it looked like she was gone. As it turned out, the bitch just knew how to possess people.

It was, Dean discovered, somewhat difficult to fight a ghost when he was afraid to do any sort of damage to the form that ghost had taken. Usually he didn't worry about Lee too much when they were on hunts. The guy was a badass, and Dean knew he could take care of himself. It was a little different when it would be Dean fighting him, though. Well, he wasn't fighting Lee, he was fighting a ghost. But at present, he couldn't do that without fighting Lee. Something he never wanted to do.

It was thanks to that sort of sentimentality that Dean wound up dangling out a window five stories up, with Lee's hand gripping his throat. Grabbing onto Lee's wrist wasn't really helping much and, frankly, he was running out of oxygen to keep trying to talk in the hopes of getting through to him. Hell, Dean didn't even know if you could get through to a possessed person.

Thankfully, John had no compunctions about potentially hurting Lee. Well, not quite thankfully. Actually Dean had to try not to be pissed about it.

John shot Lee in the shoulder with a salt round, and it worked, it got rid of the ghost. Logically, Dean knew it was about the only thing he could've done in that situation. It was tough to look at things logically though from five stories up.

Without that bitch holding him, Dean almost ended up falling anyway. But he caught the windowsill with one hand, grimacing at the broken glass that sunk into his palm but all too aware the fall would be worse. And Lee snatched his other hand. Dean didn't think he'd ever been more grateful for those quick reflexes, that was for sure.

Dragging him back in through the window was a team effort, and Dean leaned against the wall, focusing on getting the air back into his fucking lungs. Lee was on the floor in front of him in an instant, a reasonable but unwarranted level of concern in his eyes. He reached out a hand towards Dean's face, then seemed to rethink it and pulled away. He said, "Holy shit, man, what the hell just happened? You okay?"

"Aces," Dean said, or croaked rather. He offered a thumbs up to make the message clearer, then asked, "You?"

"I ain't the one who was just thrown out a window, so I'd say fine, yeah."

He didn't sound fine. But Dean would have to argue later. John cleared his throat and said, "We have to move. Someone will've called the cops by now, and we better not be around when they get here."

Cops be damned, Dean didn't want to be around when that ghost bitch came back.

Now, near death experiences were a helluva lot more common for them than ghost possessions. And, while Dean was maybe a little thrown (okay, bad choice of words,) it was Lee who was fucking freaked about it.

"I almost killed you, Dean."

They were back at the motel they'd been staying in. Dean was sitting on the bathroom counter with his hand over the sink, while Lee plucked bits of glass out of his palm with a pair of tweezers. 

"No, a ghost almost killed me," Dean said. "Which is par for the course, actually. Can we move on?"

From the other room, John called, "Is he still bitching about that?"

"Yep," Dean called back. He winced at the way raising his voice aggravated his throat. He'd been expecting the bruise but damn, was it supposed to hurt to talk? Lee must've caught the wince, too, because his expression only got more pathetic.

John showed up in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. He cleared his throat and said, "Webb, lemme ask you a question here. Did you decide to throw my son out a window, or was it a ghost's idea?"

"The ghost."

"Way I see it, you got two choices here. You can either keep beating yourself up about something that wasn't your fault, or you can get your head outta your ass, and maybe you can find a way to beat up the damn ghost instead. This isn't on you. Clear?"

"Yeah, I got it," Lee said. He gave a small nod before turning his attention back to the glass in Dean's hand.

"Good. I don't wanna have to tell you again," John said, mirroring the nod. And Dean must've made a face when Lee plucked out that last shard, because he gave Dean a look and said, "And you being such a damn baby ain't helping either. Hurry up and get a bandage on that hand of yours, we got work to do."

"Yes, sir," Dean said. He didn't really think he was being a baby, but he had to agree, showing that it hurt even just a little wasn't making Lee feel better about what happened. And they did have more important things to focus on.

It didn't take too much digging to find a name for their ghost after Dean had recognized her face, and soon enough he was able to pull out the article about her from the stack of old newspapers they'd 'borrowed' from the library records. Her name was Florence Welch, she'd died in the late 1890s and made it into a paper printed in the 1920s, thanks to the fact she'd been the last heir to some old rich guy, and she hadn't even known it when she died. It looked like she was the last heir, until they found one the year the paper came out.

No one ever knew why, but apparently she'd just snapped one day. Killed two of her students while visiting their family for tea or whatever, then threw their parents out the window when they tried to stop her. The mom had got her by the wrist, and took her out the window too as she fell. Kinda gruesome.

"So she was a teacher?" Lee asked, leaning over Dean's shoulder to look at the article. "Why's she evil?"

"Wouldn't you be, if your parents named you Florence?"

"Quit joking around," John said. But the disapproving glare was totally worth it, because Lee smiled. "This spirit can possess people, that means she's strong. And we still don't know where she's buried."

"That's because she wasn't," Lee said, pointing at the bottom line of the article. "Says here she was cremated."

It took another whole days worth of digging to find out what it was tying her to Earth, in that time she almost killed another kid, in the motel room next to theirs. Thankfully they heard the scream in time to stop her. She was tied to an old coin given to her as a token from her father. It also explained how she'd been traveling all over the damn city, people could easily pick the thing up and mistake it for a quarter. In fact, that's what Lee had done when he stuck it in his pocket.

Something that didn't seem like such a great fact when good old Florence appeared to kick their asses again, but hey at least they didn't have to find the damn thing.

Somehow they managed to burn it in the Gas'N'Sip parking lot. It didn't burn all the way through, being metal and all, and it got them yelled at by the cashier inside. But it burnt enough that Florence Welch went up in flames with it, and that was good enough for them.

The three of them headed back to the motel for some well needed rest. John had taken the room next door, and Dean and Lee were sharing one. They took that arrangement as often as they could, nobody had to know that the both of them only used one of the beds.

Anyway, Dean woke up at some ungodly hour of the night, with the sound of the rain coming down outside, and the kind of thirst for a cold glass of water that you only ever had when you woke up at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night. He'd carefully climbed out of bed, so as not to wake Lee, grabbing a glass off the nightstand and heading to the bathroom sink to fill it.

When he came back, Lee was awake. He could just make out a frown in the dark, a silent ask of what was going on. That was fair, they both slept with guns under their pillows, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night meant danger.

"Glass of water," Dean explained, dropping back onto the mattress. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"'S fine," Lee said. It was quiet for a moment after that, and Dean assumed he'd fallen back asleep. But then he said, almost too quiet for Dean to actually hear, "You weren't gonna stop me."

"Huh?"

"When I had you out the window," he whispered, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. "You weren't gonna stop me."

"Don't fucking start that again. It was a damn ghost, we killed her. Go to sleep."

"It's not about that," Lee said, turning to look at Dean.

His expression was almost impossible to read, but Dean doubted how much of that was thanks to the dark. So when he asked he wasn't sure he wanted the answer, but he asked anyway. "Then what's it about?"

Lee looked away again. Considering how long it took him to answer, it didn't seem like Lee wanted to have this conversation either. So just why the hell they were having it, and in the middle of the night at that, was beyond Dean. But Lee did answer, and when he did he said, "You said you didn't want to hurt me. Not to make you hurt me."

"Wait, you could hear me?"

"Yeah, I heard you. I just..." Lee said, pushing himself up and leaning against the headboard. He looked at the wall across from them, but Dean wasn't sure it was the wall he was seeing. "Couldn't do anything about it. If she'd let go I couldn't've done anything about it."

Honestly, Dean wasn't sure how to answer that. He thought it was good Lee at least seemed to accept it wasn't his fault, it was out of his control. But it didn't sound like he was any more over what happened than he had been when he was blaming himself. All that emotional crap had never been Dean's specialty though, and all he could think to say was, "Thank god for rock salt, right?"

"You could've," Lee said, looking back at Dean. And Dean's expressions must've been easier to read than Lee's, because he clarified, "You could've done something about it, Dean."

Well what the hell was he supposed to do with that?

"What?"

"You were pulling your punches. I ain't ever seen a ghost kick your ass so easily, or anything for that matter. You weren't gonna stop me."

Even if whatever Lee was driving at there had been true, Dean had no idea what he was mad about. Certainly most people would be glad somebody cared about them too much to hurt them. Certainly it was a good thing that Dean was willing to take a couple hits to avoid hitting Lee. And besides, it wasn't like he'd just quit, he'd dodged and ducked and definitely hit back once or twice. He just...hadn't been willing to hurt Lee.

Dean moved to sit up too, so he could look Lee in the face as best as possible. He still couldn't tell what was going on in Lee's head. "What, are you saying it'd be better if I knocked your teeth out or something? 'Cause I'll tell you what, it wouldn't've stopped the bitch. I still would've ended up out that window, only difference would be, you'd've got hurt too."

Lee nodded. Not like he agreed, just like that was the response he'd been expecting to hear. After a second he asked, "If the situation were swapped and she'd possessed you, what would you want me to do, Dean?"

"C'mon, this is bullshit man," Dean said.

"No. What would you want to me to do?"

"I'm not gonna answer the question because I'm not gonna play this game, Lee."

"Yeah, because you wouldn't want me to worry about you, would you? You'd expect me to fight back. To not let myself get almost choked to death, and dangled out the window five stories up."

And okay, fine, maybe when Dean thought about it that was true. If Lee's life were in danger, he wouldn't want him to think about whether or not Dean could get hurt. He'd want him to take care of himself, Dean's safety be damned. But that wasn't the point, and the hypothetical was stupid anyway, because Dean hadn't gotten possessed by a ghost, Lee had.

Coming up short on a persuasive reply, Dean ran a frustrated hand through his hair before finally replying, "That's different, man!"

"Why?"

Fuck. Lee had to stop asking him questions he didn't have the answer to.

"I don't know, it just is," he said, which really did wonders for his side of that argument. Rather than think about that question further Dean asked, "Why does it matter anyway? I'm fine, you're fine. Why is this an issue?"

For a second, Lee just stared at him. Like either he was waiting for what exactly the issue was to click in Dean's brain, or he just couldn't understand how Dean didn't get it already. Probably a combination of the two.

It felt out of nowhere when he looked away again, shaking his head, and said, "I just don't get how you can care so little about yourself."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You don't care, that's what," Lee said, like it was supposed to be obvious. "You'd choose John, or Sam, or me, or some total fucking stranger over yourself every time, man. And you're not the only one."

Which, okay, saying Dean didn't care about himself was one thing. He wasn't saying it was true, but so what if it was. Any time he willingly put himself in danger it was in the name of helping people, and Lee could say he was being reckless and stupid if he wanted to, but Dean was helping people. That was more important than his own safety or happiness every time. That was what he did, who he was.

But Lee didn't think he was the only one, and what did that even mean? How had a damn ghost hunt turned into this conversation anyway? All he could say was, "What?"

"Half the people we help don't even know we exist, they don't care about you. Your old man? When he shot me to get rid of Florence there's no way he didn't know she'd let go, you'd've died anyway if you hadn't caught that windowsill," Lee said. "And Sam, he's in California going to college parties pretending you don't exist, he doesn't care."

"I see," Dean said with a mock nod. "You're upset I didn't hit you hard enough when you were a ghost, so you're trying to get me to do it now. Is that it?"

Lee didn't seem bothered by the response. Probably he already had enough evidence that Dean wasn't able to hurt him. Boy was that a bitter sort of irony.

He shot a look out the window, where the rain had begun to lighten up. It looked like they were back to whispering when Lee said, "Do you have any idea what it's like, to see someone you love not give a single crap about himself?"

It was something that threw Dean off so much he forgot he was supposed to be pissed about what Lee had said about John and Sam. Forgot Lee was supposed to be pissed at him, too.

They'd been whatever the hell they were for years by then, but they'd never said it out loud. Their bond or whatever you wanted to call it had been communicated solely by actions, and a mutual understanding. They protected each other on hunts, and Lee knew Dean better than just about anyone, and Dean would let Lee use his shoulder as a pillow pretty much whenever he wanted. But they didn't talk about it, they just fell into it. It was simple, in a way few things in Dean's life were.

And now Lee was saying it out loud, not just that he cared about Dean, but that he loved him. And he was saying it like it was a bad thing.

Before Dean could even process that well enough to answer, Lee added, "I can't be the only one who gives a shit about you, Dean. I can't do that anymore."

"Lee, what are you saying?"

He didn't really have to ask. Dean knew leaving words when he heard them, and those were it.

"Nothing," Lee said, and they both knew it wasn't the truth. He shook his head, brushed a hand through his hair. Turned away from the window, looked back at Dean with those impossible eyes again and said, "Forget it. It's been a long few days, let's just...Let's just go to sleep. I'm sorry."

So they did. They went back to sleep, with the sound of the rain picking back up again outside. And even when Lee chose Dean's arm over his own pillow, Dean couldn't shake the feeling that very soon he'd be waking up from that dream he'd been living in those past few years.

They went back to normal the next morning.

That was the first time Dean regretted the easy way in which they communicated without words, somehow they'd agreed to act like their conversation the night before had never happened. Dean wondered if maybe he'd been willing to talk about it things could have been different. He wondered about a lot of crap he could've done to make things turn out different.

Three whole days later, Dean just woke up to an empty room. There wasn't a single damn sign that Lee had ever been there with him in the first place. No goodbye, no note, nothing.

Looking back, he knew it was foolish, to let himself get so damn attached. To think maybe Lee Webb could be a part of his life forever.

He never could bring himself to regret it though.

\--

Fifteen years later he found Swayze's. The real one.

He found Lee too, although he wished he hadn't.

When the silence in the car got to be to much on the drive back home, Dean switched on the radio. The Velvet Underground was playing. _Pale Blue Eyes._ It was easier now than it ever had been to feel like the coincidence was just God playing some sort of cruel joke, but Dean just didn't have it in him to be mad anymore.

He was too damn tired.

He pulled over to the side of the road and cried.


End file.
